15. Are All Yogis Nonviolent?
Yoga Studies in Five Minutes - Theodora Wildcroft
Matylda Ciołkosz [+]
Jagiellonian University, Kraków
Matylda Ciołkosz is an assistant professor at the Institute of Religious Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She earned her PhD in culture and religion studies in 2019 for her research on the meaning- making role of kinesthetic experience in the practice of modern postural yoga. In her research, she draws from cognitive approaches to the study of religions to explore the influence of sensory, motor, and social contexts on the formation and application of religious concepts.
Description
It is nowadays common to associate yoga practice with non-violence, but in some yogic texts, the virtue of non-violence is not always relevant and yogic warriors existed. Even today this image of yoga as peaceful sometimes belies forms of systemic violence, and even traditional asceticism can be argued to be a form of self-inflicted violence against the body.